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Trump Late for UN, His Speech Drew Laughter at Assembly!

Trump Late for UN, His Speech Drew Laughter at Assembly!
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Local Editor

Not even a minute into his speech. The UN laughed.

On the planet’s biggest stage, with more than 100 world leaders gathered with their ministers, ambassadors and dignitaries of every stripe, while news cameras from as many countries broadcast the speech in as many languages, they laughed.

The UN General Assembly broke into giggles, then outright laughter when US president Donald Trump made a grandiose claim about his administration’s successes.

At the beginning of his speech on Tuesday, Trump rolled out a line familiar to White House watchers: “In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any other administration in history,” he said.

After the crowd giggled, he said: “So true.” The laughs got louder and Trump paused with a smile on his face, before saying: “Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay.” He was met with even more laughter and smattered applause.

By the end of the day, there was no escaping it. The laugh even made it into the official White House transcript of Trump’s speech.

Relatedly, Trump had arrived late for his UN speaking slot, with Ecuador’s president Lenín Moreno Garcés going early in his place.

The US president was seen at the UN headquarters on Reuters’ live feed around 10:15am—seven minutes after he was due to begin speaking. The White House press pool e-mailed at 10:08am that it was on the way to the UN in a presidential motorcade from Trump Tower, but that it had had no sighting of Trump.

Vice president Mike Pence, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, and press secretary Sarah Sanders walked into the General Assembly hall around 10:28am. Attendees immediately started murmuring under their breaths, disrupting Moreno Garcés’ speech.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on why Trump was late.

As the host nation, the US president always speaks second and the UN calendar planned for Trump to take that slot as usual. Trump tweeted an hour earlier that he planned to speak.

Ecuador’s Moreno Garcés used his slot to rail at the US blockade of Cuba and global powers’ spending on weapons. Trump took the podium afterwards, more than half an hour after he was slated to speak.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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